Fuchsia: cultivation and care, replanting and propagation

Did you know that the fuchsia seed found in excavations in New Zealand is about 30 million years old? But the plant itself is even older.

In its natural habitat fuchsia can reach a height of 10 meters, but in room culture its growth is much more modest. But the flowers of fuchsia are worthy of the brightest epithets: not for nothing one of the purple shades was named after this exotic plant.

• How to plant and grow fuchsia at home?
• How to care for this plant?
• How to make the fuchsia bloom?

Read about it in our article.

Fuchsia (lat. Fuchsia) is a genus of perennials in the Cypress family, numbering about 100 species. In nature fuchsia flower is found in South and Central America, as well as in New Zealand, and is an evergreen shrub. The fuchsia plant was named after one of the “fathers of botany” Leonard von Fuchs. The indoor fuchsia, grown in culture for over 200 years, is a hybrid fuchsia and its many forms and varieties. It has long been a favorite of florists, who affectionately call it the “Japanese lantern.”

Botanical Description

In nature, fuchsia looks like a shrub with flexible branches. Fuchsia leaves, green or slightly reddish, oval, opposite, slightly pointed and serrated at the edges. Fuchsia blooms abundantly and long-lasting drooping flowers, consisting of a bright calyx and a tubular corolla with bent edges. The blades of the calyx are longer than the petals and the stamens are longer than the calyx. Fuchsia flowers are on long pedicels, with pink, white, red, orange, cream, purple, sometimes three different shades per flower. The fruit is an edible berry.

The plant is so plastic that it can be given any shape – ampelic, bush, pyramidal or grow a stumpy tree. In addition, different Fuchsias bloom at different times with different colors, so you have the possibility to have a collection of Fuchsias that bloom from early spring to late fall. Fuchsias are differentiated by the time they bloom, the color of the flowers, and their appearance.

Care of home fuchsia

Growing conditions

Taking care of fuchsia at home is surprisingly uncomplicated. Keep in mind that the fuchsia prefers cool rooms in which the temperature does not rise above 20 ºC. In summer. In winter, the temperature should not be higher than 15 ºC. The best place the fuchsia could occupy at home is on an east or north windowsill. If it’s too stuffy in the summer, you’d better take the plant out onto a balcony or yard and place it in a well-lit location with sunlight only in the morning. In the afternoon and into the evening the fuchsia prefers penumbra.

Watering should be regular and sufficient during the period of growth and flowering. Watering should be done after the top layer of soil has dried out, making sure that no moisture stagnates in the roots. The water should be left out or filtered. In late autumn, watering is reduced, and in winter watering 1-2 times a month. It would be good to avoid overheating the roots in the summer heat to grow fuchsia in a thick ceramic pot. Very refresh your beauty sprinkling water in the summer time, to achieve the necessary humidity in the air can also be, placing the pot with fuchsia on the pallet with wet pebbles.

Fertilizing

Fuchsias growing in the open ground, it is better to feed biological fertilizers. Fuchsia at home responds well to fertilization with ready-made complex fertilizers for flowering plants, which are applied once every two weeks during the growing season. These fertilizers usually have no or very little nitrogen component. During the winter months there is a dormant period, and the plant will not need fertilizing.

Repotting

Fuchsia needs annual transplanting, which is carried out in the spring. As a substrate, a mixture of sod, leaf soil, peat, sand and mulch in equal parts is used. A drainage layer, for example, of expanded clay, is necessarily required. The best way to transplant fuchsia is by transplanting: in a pot on a layer of drainage is poured a little soil mixture, then transplant the plant there with the root ball, then fill the voids with the soil mixture. Transplanted fuchsia is placed in a well-lit place, cut the stems to one-third of the length, sprayed and well watered. If you do everything correctly, fuchsia blooms will be abundant.

Pruning

Experts suggest pruning room fuchsia twice a year: at the end of the growing season – in early October, and in winter – at the very beginning of January. The first pruning involves the removal of all the flowering branches at a height of 2 cm from the dormant buds located in the axils, which are not difficult to find by carefully inspecting each branch. After pruning, you can begin to remove pests, seed bolls that you do not need, and spent flower stems. The second pruning is done in January and represents the final formation of the crown of the plant.

Propagation of domestic fuchsia

Growing from seed

Fuchsia, grown from seeds, rarely retains the signs of the original plant, so this method is interesting only for those flower growers who are fond of breeding experiments. The difficulty of this method is the need to eliminate self-pollination of fuchsia and pollination of the plant by insects. To do this, the anthers of the unblossomed flower are removed and pollen from the father plant is applied to the stigma of the pistil. A cover is then placed over the flower to insulate it from insects. The cover can be made from paper or fabric and secured below the flower with threads. When the fruit is ripe, it is carefully cut open, the seeds are removed and dried for a day or two.

Sow the seeds of fuchsia on top of the damp substrate is not covered, then the container is placed in a greenhouse and kept in good light and room temperature. Shoots appear in a couple of weeks, in a month and a half to two months the seedlings seeded prostorney (pick), and a couple of months later the young plants are seeded in separate pots. Seedlings should accustomed to the environment gradually, opening at a time greenhouse, otherwise unadapted seedlings after placement in the normal room conditions can die.

Cuttings

And yet the most reliable way of reproducing fuchsia – vegetative, namely – cuttings, because it can be used at any time of the year, but it is still reasonable to reproduce fuchsia in the spring. It is best to take young cuttings, since the woody cuttings take too long to root and grow. The length of the cuttings should be on average 10-20 cm, the leaves in the lower part of the cuttings are removed, the remaining ones are shortened by half.

Water for rooting is taken filtered, the cuttings placed in the water are covered with a plastic bag or a plastic bottle. Stubs in the cuttings may appear as early as the fourth day, and maybe the tenth. Do not wait until the long roots grow, plant the cuttings in the substrate immediately as the first young roots appear. There are among flower growers daredevils, planting cuttings of fuchsia in the ground immediately, bypassing the stage of rooting them in water. But greenhouse conditions to create cuttings necessary in any case.

Winter Fuchsia

Fuchsia in winter gradually passes to a resting period, which is necessary for almost any plant. If she rests fully and recovers her wasted strength, you can hope for abundant and long blooms next year as well.

To prepare the plant for rest, you need to gradually reduce watering fuchsia, stop making fertilizers and, finally, move the vase with the plant to a cooler room with an air temperature of 10-15ºC, where the fuchsia will spend the winter. In a normal city apartment you can use a loggia or balcony as such a room, provided they are closed with glazed frames and insulated.

Do not forget to prune the plant and exterminate pests before winter hibernation. If you’re worried about the fuchsia getting cold, insulate the vase with Styrofoam or put it in a box with sawdust. Fuchsia can hibernate in the cellar, and even in the garage, since it does not care whether there is light or total darkness in the room during this period. But if your fuchsia has to overwinter on a windowsill in a well-heated room, you can hardly expect it to quickly get into shape in spring and make you happy with unprecedented blooms.

Fuchsia is an unassuming plant, but it requires love and care like any other. So if you condemn an exotic plant to winter hard labor on a windowsill you will have to make sacrifices and keep the sash of the window in the position “ventilate” almost around the clock.